Bluefin tuna demand lures Japanese investors chasing 7% return
News On Japan via Bloomberg -- Mar 18
The world's appetite for Japanese tuna, Wagyu beef and other delicacies prized in restaurants as far away as New York's Morimoto is attracting funds chasing 7 percent returns from investments in farms and fish ponds.
Institutional investors and regional banks have poured at least 23 billion yen ($280 million) into about a dozen funds aimed at boosting exports of Japanese foods. Four are managed by Daisuke Mori, a former Citigroup Inc. (C) banker who has pooled 10 billion yen to invest in projects including tuna farming, most of them on the island of Kyushu in Japan's south, far from the radiation contamination in the northern Fukushima area.
"Food is the one area that has a big investment potential," said Mori, 44, president of Dogan Investments Inc. in Fukuoka City. "Locally farmed tuna, pork and beef on Kyushu island should get a stronger connection with the big market outside of Japan."
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